Oi mates, I’ve got some cybersecurity tea to spill today. You know how we always fret about hackers sneaking around, snatching our personal info, right? You’d think the danger hails from the cyber dark corners, full of dodgy blokes. Well, not quite. Sometimes, the most severe breaches can come from the very firms we put our faith in.
Hold on to your cups, this is some grade-A scandal coming from Germany, and it’s about our good old motoring giant, the VW Group. Now, don’t ask me why, but they went ahead and stashed sensitive data for 800,000 electric cars from various big brands on a subpar Amazon cloud—leaving the digital hatch wide open for anyone to stroll in. As if it’s garden party! And guess what, this wasn’t just a quick cock-up. Oh no, this went on for blinking months.
Now this isn’t some minor little kerfuffle; it touches actual, battery powered beauties from Audi, VW, Seat, and Skoda brands. It’s not even a local stumble. Nope, it extends all the way across Europe and to other bits of the globe. The amount of info up for grabs really chills your tea. There were GPS coordinates, battery power levels and even whether the motors were switched on or off at the point. Quite the smorgasbord of details for any chap with malicious intent, don’t you think?
Here’s the real kicker. For a whacking 466,000 of these cases, the location details were pinpoint accurate. Enough to map someone’s whole day, every habitual pitstop down to the minute. Sounds pretty rotten, eh? Listen, it gets worse. The German paper Spiegel spilled that among the many unfortunate cars owners ensnared in this digital dragnet were not just everyday Joes. We are talking German politicians, entrepreneurs, an entire fleet of electric police vehicles from Hamburg, and get this, even suspected intelligence service employees. Yes, that’s right, even the sneaky spies were up a creek with this royal mess.
I bet you’re rolling your eyes now thinking why on earth were these cars hoarding location data and if the car owners were aware. That’s a solid question, mate. Consent must be mutual, after all. It’s a hefty mess, that’s for sure. So, folks, be vigilant and tell me, how safe do you feel with our data in the hands of big companies? Grab a cuppa and let’s have a chat about it!
by Parker Bytes
